


In My Own Words

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Love Is A Different Kind Of Pain [2]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Black Lodge, Heavy Angst, How has this AU not been done for these two yet it's a fucking travesty okay, Inconsistent chapter lengths, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23439112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: Cooper isn't expecting it to be another man.Harry isn't expecting it to be anyone at all.
Relationships: Dale Cooper/Harry Truman
Series: Love Is A Different Kind Of Pain [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718449
Comments: 46
Kudos: 64





	1. A Discovery You're Too Young To Comprehend

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, as noted in the tags HOW THE FUCK HAS THERE NOT BEEN A SOULMATE AU DONE FOR THESE TWO YET. Unacceptable.
> 
> So the format for these particular soulmate-identifying marks was something I came up with for a different pairing in a different fandom, and I'm so proud of it that I saw fit to reuse it here.
> 
> This is possibly the only fic you will ever see from me that acknowledges the events of The Return. Don't get used to it. I was not a fan of the 2017 addition to this otherwise amazing show.

His mom is the one to explain it to him, when he’s six years old. Everyone is born with these, see, his brother and his father and her all have them just like he does - three words in uppercase letters on the underside of his forearm. If they’re blue, it means your soulmate isn’t born yet. If they’re black, it means they exist and they’re waiting for you. If they turn clear and you can barely see them anymore… it means they’ve died.

Harry doesn’t understand any of his words: **COFFEE** , **SHOT** , **TAPE**. They’re bright blue on his skin. He asks his mom what they mean.

“What do you think they mean, sweetheart?” she asks, pulling him up onto the couch and into her lap.

Harry grabs onto the sleeve of her blue housedress. “I don’t know, Mama.”

“Well, what do you think of first when someone says these words?”

“Coffee is something only grown-ups drink.”

“Many people don’t meet their soulmates until they’re grown-ups. What about the next one?”

“When Daddy takes me and Frank hunting, he shoots at deers and sometimes brings them home for us to eat.”

“Now how about this last one? What’s tape?”

“We fix stuff with it.” Harry looks up at her. “Mama, what’s somebody’s words gonna say about me?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s different for everyone, but you’ll find out when you meet her.”

“Okay.”

This conversation never leaves him, especially the part about how the words turn clear if your person is killed. Sometimes he gets scared and rolls up his sleeve just to check, to make sure, that his are still there, bright blue on his skin.

Harry is thirteen when his words finally turn black.

His soulmate, whoever she is, has finally been born.

* * *

Dale learns to read when he’s four and a half years old.

Emmet hates that, and starts yelling.

“It’s not fair!” Dale’s big brother says. “Why is he already good at stuff?! Why does he get to have words and I don’t?!”

Mommy and Daddy try to talk to Emmet. Dale just sits on the books in his chair and eats his food. He doesn’t know why his brother is so mad, why his brother is always mad at him. He gets to be in kindergarten soon, and then they can go to school together. That makes him happy. Why doesn’t it make Emmet happy, too?

“Not everyone has words,” Mommy says. “It’s not your fault that you don’t have words, it just happens sometimes.”

“IT’S NOT FAIR!” Emmet screams. He picks up his plate and throws it, then runs away from the kitchen.

Mommy and Daddy run after him. Dale still eats, and after that he looks at his arm. **B-A-D-G-E**. Mommy told him how to say it: baj. She said it’s a thing people wear. **CURL**. Like hair, sometimes. Sometimes hair has curls. **TREES**. Tall wood things with leafs that he tries to climb in the yard.

Daddy is yelling at Emmet in the living room. Dale starts sucking his thumb.


	2. Mistaking A Lack Of Progress For A Lack Of Potential

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so, it's been a super long day for me and I just KNOW I'm going to forget to put up this chapter if I don't do it now, so here it is. Enjoy.
> 
> Oh yeah it should be noted that in all my fics I use the ages of the actors for the ages of the characters... there's no way in hell that you can look at Kyle MacLachlan in the original two seasons and think "that's a 36-year-old." For fuck's sake, before I looked him up on IMDB I thought he was like 25 or something when the show was being filmed.

By the time Harry’s thirtieth birthday rolls around, he’s starting to give up hope that he’ll meet his soulmate.

There’s loopholes he never knew about when he was a kid. Sometimes a person will be your soulmate, but at the same time you’re not theirs, somehow. Medical science still hasn’t explained that one. There are two others that medical science  _ can _ explain, though. Firstly, sometimes people get hit in the head hard enough that their whole being changes. Whoever they were before that stops existing. Then the words on their arm and their former soulmate’s arm will turn clear, the same as with a death. Secondly, and a lot more scarily, if your soulmate is comatose your words won’t turn clear unless they’re completely brain-dead. But it’s not just brain-dead people who stay in comas until they die from something else.

Harry wonders sometimes which one of these things applies to him. He wonders why he doesn’t get to meet his soulmate, to understand what his words really mean. Maybe it would’ve been better if he’d been born without words… for some reason it happens a lot in Twin Peaks, people being born without words. It’s not the majority or anything, but it’s common enough that nobody bats an eye at it, especially now that it’s 1976 and acceptance has been growing for a few years.

Somehow… despite all those things… Harry lives in fear of a day that might come where he wakes up one morning and the words have turned clear. It’ll mean once and for all that he missed his chance, that the person who can love him better than anyone else has gone and there’s nothing he can do. He’s never even met her yet. It would still destroy him if he lost the words meant for whoever she is. She’s out there, somewhere in the world, waiting for him.

And then he also realizes that his words didn’t even turn black until he was thirteen years old. That means if he met her today she’s only seventeen, which is statutory rape. It’s a discomforting thought. How the hell will it even work for there to be such an age gap between him and his future wife? Suppose she finds her way to him next year… yeah, it’d be legal then, but everyone around him would find it creepy at best and disgusting at worst.

Harry decides it’s better this way. It’s better he doesn’t know her… at least not yet.

* * *

Click.

“Diane… I’ve at least partially recovered from yet another in a series of surgical procedures, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve been moved from intensive care to a ward. There is still a considerable amount of physical pain at the site of the injury, which would be difficult to ignore if not for the even greater emotional anguish I’m currently suffering. I thought… Diane… I thought it might be her. But she’s gone and my words are still a sharp black on my skin, not a glossy clear that reflects light at certain angles and is otherwise unable to be seen. I betrayed my partner for nothing. I let my guard down at the most inopportune moment possible. An innocent life paid the price for my catastrophic incompetence. Very selfishly, I find that these wrongs still pale in comparison to the fact that she stole my heart despite the fact that she was never meant to. Somehow that heightens the loss, knowing that this was a temporary state regardless of her passing.”

Dale pauses in his narration and raises his arm to look at his words the way he has so many times since he learned what they said. Caroline’s hair had curls at the ends, a stunning golden-blonde like sunbeams.

“It also occurs to me now that after this tragedy, I will be unavoidably suspicious for some time on the rare occasion that I have cause to think I may have found the woman I’m suited for. It may seem obvious for me to say this, but I’ve had extreme difficulty on this issue so far. Curly hair is far from uncommon and that makes the narrowing down of my options highly frustrating. Additionally, at a younger age when speaking with my father on this topic he told me that it’ll turn out to be the last person I expect, and that I’ll discover her very suddenly. Had I paid closer attention to his words before now I would’ve known much earlier on that my relationship with Caroline would be unproductive.”

Dale stops his tape recorder and relaxes carefully back into the hospital bed. He feels so mentally and emotionally crushed by this tragedy that he can no longer bear to hear himself talk.


	3. Troubling Or Inaccurate Conclusions

It’s kinda good… it’s a good combination.

Josie doesn’t have words at all.

Harry will never meet the person his words are meant for.

And it even works out, because he does actually care for her. He knows she’s not meant for him, she knows there’s nobody meant for her, but it still works. She’s soft and quiet and beautiful, she fits perfectly in his arms and she trusts him. She needs him. Harry needs to be needed and he’s glad he can give that to her.

And then.

And then he gets a call from Pete early in the morning, everything tilts on its axis so that his world is upside down and suddenly there’s a missing girl who turns up all on her own across the state line. All of this falls into his lap in less than twenty four hours. He has to make calls to people about this, and they tell him: don’t worry, we’ll send help, this case is big enough that we can send you someone.

That someone is Special Agent Dale Cooper of the FBI.

Harry doesn’t understand. Meeting Dale in the hallway of the hospital, he can’t figure out why he feels like he got electrocuted. It’s weird… it’s unpleasant but exhilarating. Every nerve under his skin buzzes, and it only gets worse when they shake hands. His left arm especially, where his words are, feels like it’s on fire. Did he get stung by something? Are there wasps in this building? And the whole time Dale is frowning a little bit, like he just bit into something and it tastes like fruit that’s about to rot.

And it just gets weirder from there.

“Sheriff,” Dale says through a huge, blinding smile, “what kind of fantastic trees have you got growing around here? Big, majestic…”

“Douglas firs,” Harry answers, baffled.

“Douglas firs,” Dale repeats, almost whispering, before immediately switching tracks back to the task at hand. “Can someone get me a copy of the coroner’s report on the dead girl?”

They keep speaking as they walk side-by-side up the hall towards the elevator and Harry’s buzzing so much he thinks he might suddenly explode. He’s never felt like this before and it scares him - he must be allergic to something. Good thing he’s already in a hospital.

* * *

“There are three things that continue to trouble me, and I’m speaking to you now not only as an agent of the Bureau but also as a human being: what  _ really _ went on between Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys, and who really pulled the trigger on JFK? Besides those first two, the third is a much more recent concern. Diane… I believe I have found my soulmate. And my father was correct many years ago when he told me that it would be the person I least expect. Given that due to uniform regulations I’m perpetually dressed in long sleeved shirts with suit jackets over top, it seems reasonable to assume that you’re unaware of what my words say, so allow me to describe them now. The words in question are as follows: badge, curl, and trees. They’ve been black since the day I was born according to my parents’ descriptions, meaning the person in question is older than I am. Now I’ll also make mention of a seemingly innocuous question I asked Sheriff Truman yesterday… on the previous tape I described the trees to you, and I inquired about them to him. He was able to answer me promptly and without questioning my no doubt unusual interest in his state’s flora. I will now also inform you that he has thick, curly hair.”

Dale stops the tape long enough to dress himself and tie his shoes, then picks up the recorder again.

“I completely failed to anticipate the possibility that my soulmate may not be a woman. I will confess however that this notion does not confuse or bother me. For my entire existence I have found men as attractive as women. I would appreciate you not sharing that particular piece of information or in general most of the contents of this tape with the Bureau, but I do trust that you won’t be shocked or horrified by these revelations. Out of professional courtesy I’ll refrain from discussing it with him at this time, however. It occasionally happens that the bond between the souls in question is one-sided… so I’ll attempt to ascertain what his words say before making a move.”


	4. Speaking On Societal Expectations And The Varying Match Between Those With Reality

“My skin was itching… a wood tick was crawling… I lifted my bulletproof vest…” Dale mumbles on the stretcher as he comes to.

Harry’s never been as relieved as he is now, watching his friend regain consciousness. The scene in the hotel room was nothing short of horrific - there was blood all over the floor and Dale had passed out the second they got there. He’s so relieved, actually, that he doesn’t say anything to try and help Doc Hayward keep Dale in bed where he belongs.

“Doc, Lucy, if you’ll excuse me for a moment I have a very important question for the sheriff,” Dale announces once he’s on his feet, still grimacing in pain.

“What is it, Coop?” Harry asks when they’re out of the room.

“Given that your sleeves are already conveniently rolled to your elbows, may I please see your left arm?”

Dale wants to see his words…?

“Uh. Okay.”

Dale reaches out to hold his wrist with a light, gentle touch. His hazel eyes become even sharper and brighter as he reads, and then he breaks into the biggest smile Harry’s ever seen.

“Harry, we’ve got a lot to talk about!”

“Why?”

“Well…” Dale, still not wearing a shirt, extends his own arm and lets the black lettering stamped there speak for itself.

Harry needs a minute to come up with anything to say.

“Coop…”

“Yes, Harry?”

“This is… how long did you know?”

“Approximately since the moment we first met. At the time, I experienced a very strong pull, as if gravity or a magnetic force was attempting to move me into your space. The entire patch of skin on the underside of my arm became almost unbearably itchy, and I’m not entirely sure how I managed to refrain from scratching it.” Dale’s palm slides down until they’re holding hands. “Harry I understand and respect that you’re already in a relationship with Josie Packard. I’ll make no move to disrupt that for you, seeing how we haven’t known each other very long and also that this choice is entirely up to you. If you at any point decide you’d like for that to change, don’t hesitate to inform me so.”

Dale lets go of Harry’s hand and begins pulling on the dress shirt Hawk grabbed from his hotel room with a grunt or wince of pain every so often. Harry, for his part, just stands there like a dumbass, trying to take in everything that just got said to him. One question that’s bothered him for over a decade comes to mind, and it’s the only thing he can make his mouth say.

“Coop what year were you born?”

“1959.”

Harry was born in 1946. It adds up perfectly, and back then when he’d been stressing about this he should’ve been worried about an underage boy instead. That’s not any better, actually it’s worse, but it also doesn’t matter now because Dale’s thirty years old.

A very weak protest forms, and it’s the next thing he figures out how to say. “But we’re both men.”

“Yes. What’s your point?” Dale asks, very genuinely, even though Harry knows he’s not stupid or uninformed enough to not realize why that could be a problem. “Harry, it’s been entirely too short of a time for me to truthfully say I’ve fallen in love with you yet, but I can certainly assure you that I’m already well on my way to doing so. I can also tell you very honestly that I’ve waited apprehensively for this moment to come for many years, and it even managed to cause me some amount of emotional damage.”

“It did? How?”

“There was someone who I believed was my soulmate, and it’s a complicated story that I don’t wish to delve into at this time but I will tell you that she died as a result of my actions. I have an easy time believing that that’s only a remote possibility with you, seeing how you’re no stranger to violence and can take care of yourself.”

Harry is stunned. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Coop.”

Dale’s hand goes up. “Your apologies are appreciated but unnecessary, Harry. You’re in no way at fault for what happened back then.”

He nods, then mutters “What am I gonna tell Josie?”

“Whatever you like,” Dale answers gently, even though Harry didn’t really say that looking for a reply. “Like I said, I respect that you’re already in a relationship with her. If you’d prefer for us to continue on as friends it’s completely understandable, and to be perfectly honest I’m satisfied with the fact that neither of us has to wait and wonder anymore. The matter has been settled and at least now we know.”

That’s a really good point. Harry lost a lot of sleep when he was younger over this before he finally started to give up on it. Now, in the beginning of his middle-age when he was absolutely sure he’d never have the answer, he’s finally found his soulmate. And it’s this rambunctious weirdo from the FBI who eats an entire pie and half a dozen donuts every day but somehow doesn’t gain an ounce of weight.

“Can you give me a couple days to think about this?” Harry asks.

“Absolutely. Take as much time as you need.” Dale begins tucking in his shirt.

* * *

“Morning, Harry,” he greets as he sheds his trench coat and hangs it up.

“Morning, Coop. Heading for the donuts?”

“I most certainly am,” Dale smiles.

“After you’re done, you wanna come talk for a second?”

“Alright, would you like one?”

“Sure.”

Dale comes into Harry’s office with both donuts and coffee, kicking the door shut behind him with his foot seeing how his hands are unavailable. He passes over a mug and a pastry to Harry and then takes a bite and a sip.

“What’s the matter, Harry?”

There’s a pause and they both sit before he answers.

“I went over to the Blue Pine Lodge last night to see Josie… I was gonna… talk to her. I didn’t get a chance to because she was leaving. She wouldn’t really talk to me about it, the whole situation was all kinds of wrong, Coop, in a way I can’t really explain. She said ‘it’s best if you forget about me’ and then she just left.” Harry shakes his head and takes a large sip of coffee. “Isn’t it weird the way life works out like that, sometimes? I was gonna tell her, and I didn’t get the chance because she left me first.”

Dale nods slowly. “Will you be alright?”

“I think so. I’m not happy about it, but…”

“It’s not as if you have an especially wide variety of options than to accept this and move on?” Dale guesses.

“Yeah, something like that.”

Another moment of silence as they both chew.

“I hope it’s my intuition and not my optimism telling me you’ve made a choice,” Dale finally says when his donut has been demolished.

Harry shrugs. “Coop I hope you understand, but there’s a bunch of things that have me on the fence about this.”

“Aside from the internalized homophobia and societal compulsory heterosexuality?”

“Yeah, aside from… whatever the hell you just said.”

“Would you like to share these ‘things’ that have you so concerned?”

Harry sips his coffee before answering. “You’re gonna leave eventually, first of all.”

“Yes, once the case is resolved my departure from Twin Peaks will be inevitable. However this would not be a permanent arrangement. I would make every effort to return as often as possible, I enjoy the climate and culture of this location, among other things. It would certainly not be the last you saw of me, Harry.”

“Forgive my saying so, Coop, but… that might not be good enough,” Harry admits. “And I don’t think it’d be great for you, either, to have to bounce back and forth like that.”

“In that case I would quit and find work here.”

Harry looks extremely surprised when he says that. “But you love your job.”

“I do. There are other pieces of my life that I love more, and sometimes to maintain a strong bond sacrifices must be made. I can confidently say this is one I would be able to make with only a manageable amount of regret.” Dale finishes his mug and folds his hands on top of the desk. “What else, Harry?”

“We’ve only known each other for a couple weeks.”

“Do you have misgivings about the validity of the words on your arm?” he asks, not unsympathetically.

“No. But it seems kinda important.”

“I can promise you right now that I would never attempt to force things along at a pace you’re uncomfortable with.”

Harry nods. “Okay. Uh. Good.” He swallows and looks down at his desk instead of continuing to make eye contact. “But I also haven’t… I haven’t ever…”

Dale immediately ascertains what Harry’s unable to say. “That’s alright. Do you at least understand the principle if not the mechanics of same-sex intercourse?”

Harry snorts. “Don’t say it like that, it’s so technical.”

“How would you like me to say it?”

“I don’t know.”

Dale smiles, trying to reassure him. “Do you at least have an answer to the question?”

“Yeah. I’ve heard of it a little bit.”

“Good. At least you have a starting point, it’s entirely workable.”

“People in town will talk.”

“Will they? There are many more interesting things for them to discuss, particularly the number of extramarital affairs that seem to be taking place here. We wouldn’t be cheating on our spouses in order to perpetuate our relationship.” Dale shifts his sitting position and a thought comes to him. “I’d also like to say it’s perfectly reasonable if you require time to recover from the end of your relationship with Josie first. I’ll wait for as long as you need.”

Harry nods. “Thanks, Coop.”


	5. Relations Between Time, Love, And Attempted Murder

In Harry’s opinion, he takes way too long making his mind up about things.

They got so close so quickly even before Dale informed him about everything, and they stay that way. It’s a lot stronger than a normal friendship, and several times Harry catches himself thinking _is this how a man in love is supposed to feel?_ Is he in love with this bizarre goofball? Not everyone ends up with their soulmate… sometimes people will go for full-on rejection, in an act of defiance against science or nature or god or whoever. Even more rarely, they’ll never meet in the first place. The most common reason not to start a relationship is one of them dies.

Slowly the evidence mounts in Dale’s favor. Harry’s favorite part of the day becomes gorging on donuts in the mornings with Dale sitting across from him, either in the conference room or his office. Even if any of the other Bookhouse Boys would be a better choice than him, Harry couldn’t possibly let anyone else go with Dale to One-Eyed Jack’s. The business with Leland distracts him from everything briefly, but after that Dale gets suspended from the FBI for no good reason and Harry’s never felt so angry before. And then at Dougie Milford’s wedding, seeing Dale out on the floor dancing with Audrey, Harry is shot through with jealousy. Dale gives himself up as a hostage at Dead Dog Farm and every ten seconds Harry pushes back his sleeve to check and make sure nothing’s happened, his words are still there, Dale still lives.

It finally reaches a head at the Great Northern when Harry is sent there by Pete - and what he finds is Josie and Dale pointing guns at each other.

Harry doesn’t think about it, doesn’t consider for a second his previous relationship with her as he backs Dale up, holding his own pistol. How dare she. That’s his soulmate. That’s his city boy who he teased a little when they were stomping around in the woods, who pushed a mug of coffee he didn’t know he wanted towards him across the counter with an almost mischievous slowness and a huge smile, who always takes him seriously even when he’s not being all that serious, who he comforted after the stress of raiding One-Eyed Jacks to rescue Audrey, who he defended from the Bureau’s IAB man, who he… loves. He loves Dale.

This is the most god damn inappropriate moment he could possibly realize that. He also doesn’t get the chance to dwell on it because Josie abruptly drops dead right in front of them without anyone firing a shot. Harry’s disturbed and confused by all of this, and Dale looks disturbed too, but knowing him it’s probably for completely different reasons.

“We’ll have to do forensics,” Dale says quietly after several minutes have passed.

Harry can only nod. He has no idea what the hell is going on anymore and blindly agrees to whatever it is Dale just said to him. Phone calls are made, to Doc Hayward and also to Hawk. Harry watches the forensics get done by the other three men, still in too much shock to participate.

Eventually a palm slips into his, and there’s Dale, standing right beside him.

“Harry. Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

Dale leads him out of the room and then the hotel, never letting go of his hand. It’s grounding, it helps him start to center himself again. Eventually they’re standing by his truck, still touching, and he doesn’t let go or try to get in the driver’s seat.

“Harry, we should go somewhere else and talk about this,” Dale gently insists.

“Yeah.”

Dale takes his keys and Harry goes around to the other side, climbing into the passenger’s seat without arguing. He’s too baffled to do anything else right now, caught between a nagging sense of betrayal from that past relationship even though it’s been over for weeks and the impending discussion he’ll have with Dale. He wants to have that conversation… but he’s also nervous about it. This is new to him. _Is this how a man in love is supposed to feel?_

Dale doesn’t take Harry home. Instead, they end up at the Bookhouse.

There’s nobody else here at the moment and both of them go for mugs of coffee. They don’t sit down.

“Harry, Josie is the one who shot me,” is what Dale chooses to start with.

“What?”

“Yes. Albert was very thorough, the evidence was indisputable and damning.”

“Well… why?”

“My presence frightened her. She seems to have been involved in some sort of illegal activities and she feared I would investigate her. I’m sorry, Harry.”

“Coop-”

The hand goes up. “Harry, I’m aware that your relationship with her has been over for some time, but it seems likely there would be some lingering romantic feelings. I’m still sorry.”

He sighs and then nods. “Thanks, Coop.”

“Will you be alright?”

Harry’s mouth makes words without asking him first. “What if she’d shot you again? You weren’t wearing your vest this time…”

“Well, fortunately for the state of my vital organs, she didn’t.”

“When I saw her pointing that gun at you I got so mad.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” This is embarrassing. He doesn’t know how to say it in a way that doesn’t sound dumb. “But it was a weird kinda mad, I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

“I see. Can you describe it?”

“I just had this thought like how dare she do that… or like she didn’t have a right to point a gun at you. Nobody has a right to point guns at anyone else anyway, but this was different. It was different because it was you specifically. I’d get real upset if I saw someone about to shoot Hawk or Andy or Pete, too, but this was… since it was you… Coop, I almost pulled the trigger on her. I felt… murderous. And that kinda scares me. I never wanted to kill anybody before.”

“Harry, I’m so sorry you felt that way.” Dale slips the coffee mug out of his hand and sets it somewhere, then reaches over and pulls him into a hug. Harry lets it happen and closes his eyes. “It’s alright, I’m fine. I can understand how this could be so upsetting for you.” Dale rubs his back.

Harry holds still and lets himself be held. Dale smells so nice, laundry detergent and fabric softener in his clothes alongside mild deodorant and expensive aftershave on his skin. Harry wants to drown himself in this combination of smells and he takes a deep, silent breath through his nose. His city boy, his Special Agent. His soulmate. It’s not really a feeling of possession so much as Harry wants to give himself up to Dale, to share himself with this handsome oddball in whatever ways he can.

And there it is… he has his answer.

_This is how a man in love is supposed to feel._

Harry slips his arms around Dale and hugs back, still breathing those nice clean things into his nose. He wonders if he actually would’ve shot Josie, supposing that situation had gone on any longer than it did. After a second Harry realizes he really doesn’t want to know the answer to that. He’s not a killer and he’s also not interested in turning into one.

“Dale,” he whispers, but then stops and swallows. “Dale, I…”

He feels the nod against the side of his head.

“I love you too, Harry.”

A hand petting down the hair on the back of his head. Harry can’t possibly pull Dale in any closer, but that doesn’t stop him from trying, tightening his arms a little so that it would take a crowbar to separate them. Dale kisses his skin, once on the corner of his jaw and once beside his ear, and Harry nuzzles his face into Dale’s neck. It comforts him. He loves Dale.

He loves Dale.

* * *

Harry was adequately shaken by the events of the previous night for Dale to make the decision to first turn off Harry’s alarm clock and then call Hawk and explain that they won’t be in until late this morning. There’s not an especially difficult workload today anyway; reports to be written up about what happened at the hotel, documenting the forensics. Those things will wait.

Dale makes himself some coffee and sits in the kitchen to drink it, reflecting on the events of yesterday as he does. He’d elected to go home with Harry instead of returning to the hotel and it seems to have been the right choice. Harry had stayed in a minor state of confusion and panic for some amount of time until Dale climbed into bed with him and soothed him with quiet reassurances and many, many kisses. They stayed there, cuddled up, for at least two hours until both of them fell asleep. When Dale awoke this morning they were still in the same configuration as when they’d drifted off and it was a small challenge to disentangle himself without rousing Harry.

“Diane,” Dale murmurs into his coffee because his tape recorder is in his pants pocket and he hasn’t bothered to get dressed yet, “I have never loved anyone the way I love Harry Truman.”

Harry was so rattled yesterday night. He had positively screamed at Josie, demanding her to lower her weapon in a tone Dale would never think to associate with him. Ordinarily, Harry’s very calm and patient and levelheaded. This was a state of rage and panic, driven to be overwhelming by love and protectiveness. It stands to reason Harry has never felt such a strong reaction to a situation before, which would cause him to experience a certain amount of fear and uncertainty afterwards.

Dale temporarily abandons his coffee mug in order to retrieve his tape recorder.

“Diane, it’s 6:53 AM. I’m currently sitting in the kitchen of Harry’s house. He is still asleep at this time, which is preferable after how shaken he became following last night’s ordeal. I spent the night here with him, and before he succumbed to exhaustion he expressed appreciation for this. Diane the thought occurred to me several minutes ago that I have never loved another person the same as I love Harry. If my suspension is lifted and I’m not fired, it will be extremely difficult for me to return to my position knowing I’ll have to spend so much time apart from him. During a discussion we had some time ago he informed me that it would be nearly unbearable for him as well. I should think very carefully about how to proceed… I love working for the Bureau, but I love Harry more.”

Dale’s train of thought is interrupted by a sudden loud string of profanities and then Harry barreling into the kitchen for coffee.

“My alarm didn’t go off,” Harry yells in a panic when he sees Dale at the table.

“Harry, please calm down,” Dale insists, setting aside his tape recorder and standing up to grab Harry by the shoulders and still him. “I called Hawk and informed him we would be in late today. You deserved some extra rest after yesterday. Everything’s alright, Harry.”

It takes a moment, but Harry eventually breathes out and relaxes. “But we’ve got paperwork to do.”

“It’s not going anywhere,” Dale promises. He lets go and pours a cup of joe for Harry. “How are you feeling?”

“Still a little tired, mostly.” Harry takes a sip. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You could’ve got shot again yesterday.”

“I’m fine,” Dale smiles. “It’s alright, Harry.”

Harry sets his coffee aside, then steps into Dale’s space and kisses him. Dale fumbles to put down his own mug and wraps his arms around Harry’s shoulders, mentally praising himself for his decision to call and say they’d be in late. It’s slow and tender and passionate, one of Harry’s palms resting on the side of his face and the other settled in the small of his back. God, he loves Harry.


	6. The Significance And Implications Of The Plaid Flannel Shirt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sad, guys.

Harry’s words turn red when Dale goes into the Black Lodge to chase down Windom Earle.

When Dale comes back, they put him in his hotel room first but ultimately take him to the hospital after he trips in the bathroom and goes face-first into the mirror over the sink. Harry’s words are still red and he calls Major Briggs - possibly the only person who can explain to him what the hell this means. Major Briggs tells Harry that his wife’s words turned red when he entered the White Lodge by accident, but turned black again when he returned. But Dale’s here, and Harry’s words are red… so he heads to the hospital and Dale has simply disappeared.

They look for him, for awhile.

Harry drinks more than usual as the weeks pass, then turn into months. His words are still red and Dale hasn’t turned up. Approaching a year Hawk finally comes up with an answer for him: that wasn’t Dale. It was something else, a creature from the Lodge. His Dale, the real Dale, is still trapped in an un-reality. Harry drinks even more after that.

Five years to the day after Dale vanished, Harry walks alone out to Glastonbury Grove and sits on the log outside the circle for awhile. He rolls back his sleeve and his words are still red. The only comfort he has anymore is that they’re not clear. Dale is still alive, he just isn’t present.

More time goes by. Harry drinks alone in his house every night after work. He shows up to the station hungover at least four mornings out of seven. Everyone notices but nobody says anything. There’s no helping him, not unless Dale comes back. They had such a short time together after Harry waited for him so long… forty three years, and then for six or seven nightmarish weeks he got to have Dale. It wasn’t anywhere near enough. That’s all Harry wants. He wants Dale to come back to him.

After ten years and an extremely drunk sobbing phone call with his brother, Harry quietly and sadly starts to accept things… Dale isn’t coming home. If he’d known back then that they’d have such a short space to be with each other, Harry would’ve said yes right away in that hospital room instead of wasting weeks of both their time going back and forth on it. He was so stupid back then. All he has to show for his indecision is a pile of empty whiskey bottles on his kitchen counter and stains in his pillows where he still cries himself to sleep sometimes. His words stay red.

In 2016, when Harry’s sitting in his living room reading a death sentence that came to him in the mail from the hospital’s outpatient lab, he decides it doesn’t really matter that much if his words are red or clear because he’s not going to see Dale again either way. Harry calls Frank, explains what’s going on. Will Frank come back to Twin Peaks and take over for him please, because he has to go to a special hospital in Seattle. Harry’s being sent to Seattle to die. He won’t even get to die at home. Frank says yes.

The day before he leaves, Harry goes into evidence lockup in the station late at night when nobody else is there. Several boxes of stuff sit in the very back that he hasn’t had the heart to throw away for twenty seven years, all of Dale’s belongings from the hotel. Harry brushes away an inch-thick blanket of dust and slowly opens one to find what he’s looking for right away - a stack of plaid shirts Dale wore when he was suspended. Harry steals them for himself and leaves the station for probably the last time, and he wears one of them to sleep in.

Harry dreams.

He dreams of Dale for the first time in awhile, probably a few years at least. _Can you hear it too, Harry?_ Dale asks, very concerned. _What?_ Harry says back. _The owls. They stir again here… it’ll be alright, Harry, I promise._ Harry looks at him. He can’t see Dale’s face and that scares him. _But it’s not alright. I still miss you, I miss you so much, why couldn’t you come back to me?_ Harry still can’t see Dale’s face, but somehow he knows that Dale smiles at him now. _I will soon._

Harry brings Dale’s shirts with him to the hospital and wears them around even though he knows the nurses think it’s a bad idea because they might get ruined. Harry doesn’t care. A month comes and goes with him always in those loose hospital pajamas, going through procedures that sometimes have him screaming in pain, lying still as they repeatedly x-ray his whole body to kill off diseased bone marrow, hunched over a bucket throwing up uncontrollably as poison is pumped directly into his veins to supplement the radiation therapy. He’s never without one of Dale’s flannels.

After that first month, Harry’s already so beaten down that he can barely climb out of bed on his own to shuffle to the bathroom anymore and the automatic blood pressure machine has been leaving bruises on him. Harry asks the nurses if they can do it manually instead and that means he has to pull his arm out of the flannel for them to do that. He lies still and waits for it to be over with.

“Sheriff?” Penny says as she’s handling his arm. She always calls him that even though he’s officially retired from that post. She’s so nice to him; he knows he’s her favorite patient, and she’s also his favorite nurse.

“Yeah,” he croaks.

“Didn’t these used to be red?”

Harry forces himself upright into a sitting position and looks - all the breath leaves his lungs when he sees that his words are black.

“Good lord,” he whispers. “I didn’t think that would ever happen…”

“Why were they like that?”

“Long story.” Harry lies back again and takes a sip of cranberry juice through a straw. “It doesn’t really matter… even if he really is back, I don’t think he can find me here…”

She takes his blood pressure and then puts his arm back into the sleeve for him. He waits for her to leave, but she doesn’t, even though she probably has stuff she should be doing instead of wasting her time on a dying old man.

“You’ve always seemed so sad before, is this part of the reason why?”

“Yeah.” He nods a little against the pillow. “It’s the whole reason. I still love him… isn’t that kinda stupid? I haven’t even seen him in… twenty seven years. He got taken away from me. I don’t think I’ll see him again… but I still love him so much.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dale.” Harry smiles a little. “I wish I had a picture of him. He’s so handsome. I don’t even remember what he looks like, really, but I know he’s handsome. I dreamed about him a few weeks ago, the night before I came here.”

Penny smiles at him like that’s the sweetest and saddest thing she’s ever heard. Maybe it is.

Frank calls and talks to him occasionally, updating him on life in Twin Peaks that he’s missing. A few strange things pop up in those conversations, but Harry doesn’t pay them any mind until one evening when Frank calls and says an FBI man showed up and a demon was punched to death right there in the station. Harry tries to ask about that, but Frank brushes off his concerns, telling him to just focus on getting better and promising he’ll be off soon to come up and donate some bone marrow. Harry gets left wondering about all of that. He refuses to hope for anything, the FBI man was probably Albert (assuming Albert isn’t retired by now).

Harry doesn’t sleep very well that night, so after a torturous morning round of chemotherapy complete with not being able to reach for his bucket in time and so throwing up all over himself, Harry takes a nap once the nurses have helped him change into fresh pajamas and a clean flannel. He doesn’t really dream and he’s also apparently not that heavy of a sleeper because voices start coming to him, slowly drawing him back to the world through his exhaustion.

“Oh… he’s sleeping, I can come back later…”

“I don’t think he’d mind.” Yeah, that’s Penny. She’s his favorite. “He told me how much he missed you.”

“I missed him, too.”

Harry struggles to break through the fog and feels a hand sliding into his. That’s what he needs to come to, his eyes open and he rolls his head to the right… and he must still be asleep.

Dale’s here.

Dale’s _here._

He’s in a suit, just like the night he left, but he’s older now, very tired looking. But he’s _here._

“Dale…? Are you real?”

Harry didn’t even know how much he longed for that smile until now. He almost completely forgot about it. By god, does Dale smile, even though there’s tears in his eyes. Those haven’t changed at all, his eyes and his smile. He’s still beautiful.

“Yes, Harry, I’m real,” he promises in a whisper.

Harry digs deep into himself for any kind of reserve strength he might have and drags himself out of bed, and then there are arms around him and they’re both crying uncontrollably into each other’s necks.

“I missed you so much,” Harry chokes out between heaving, gasping breaths from his weak lungs. “Dale, I missed you so much. I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Neither did I,” Dale admits, whimpering. “I got to Twin Peaks and you weren’t there… everyone was there but you. I thought something happened…” He breaks into sobs and stops talking.

Harry can’t maintain this and by the time they’re finally quiet again he’s more or less hanging off of Dale instead of standing up on his own. If it wasn’t for the arms around him, he probably would’ve dropped into a pile on the floor by now. Dale walks him backwards and eases him down into his hospital bed, sliding the blankets over his legs before pulling the chair closer and sitting. He holds Harry’s hand, careful of the IV and pulse oximeter, and with his free hand pulls a handkerchief out of somewhere in his suit so he can wipe his face on it.

“So did Frank tell you how to find me?”

“Yes. Nobody else seemed to know your exact whereabouts, all Lucy could tell me was that you were sick. A severe understatement, as I understand it.”

“I have leukemia.”

Dale nods. “Frank refused to tell me initially. I only convinced him when Hawk confirmed that the words on my arm are for you.”

“I didn’t want people to see me this way.”

“Understandable.” Then he frowns. “Is that my shirt?”

Harry finds a laugh for the first time in… god, as long as he can remember. “Yeah. We have your stuff locked up in the evidence room. I didn’t really have anything left of you, so I stole them while everyone was out of the station and brought them all here with me. You can have them back in a few weeks or months or however long it’ll be for me to finish dying.”

“What’s your blast percentage?”

“I don’t know… fifty percent? Fifty five? Something around there. They’re trying to destroy my bone marrow right now and then I’ll get a transplant.” Harry swallows dryly a couple times and reaches for his water. “Y’know, until today I didn’t even care if it works or not…”

“Oh, Harry…”

“I don’t think it matters that much. I would’ve drank myself to death anyway if it wasn’t this.” Harry closes his eyes for a moment. He wishes he slept better last night. “I kinda fell apart after you disappeared. I waited so long to meet you, and then you were just gone…”

“Harry I promise I won’t leave you again until one of us has to be buried,” Dale declares, squeezing his hand and then kissing his knuckles.

“They won’t let you in with me when I go to get radiated,” Harry warns him.

“That stands to reason. I’ll be here waiting for you when you come back from it.”

“If you’re planning on waiting around here until I die, Coop, you should probably call Frank and ask him to bring you some clothes once he gets up here in a couple days.”

“Are you expecting to die or are you hoping to?”

Harry shrugs slightly. “Until today it was both… now it’s just the first one.”

“I hope you don’t.”

“It’d be shitty, wouldn’t it?” Harry comments. “I finally have you back and then I kick the bucket on you in a few weeks, it’d be so unfair.”

Dale strokes down his hair - it’s started to fall out last week, but he still has some for now - and then leans up to kiss him. That by itself almost sends all the life flooding back into him and it’s hard for him to kiss back instead of smiling.

“Harry, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“If it’s not too terrible a thing to ask considering your current state of health, I think we should get married.”

Harry snorts. “Y’know, that’s legal now.”

Dale gives him a surprised frown. “Really.”

“Yep. Since June last year, legally recognized in all fifty states.”

“Incredible,” Dale smiles.

“Tell you what, Coop. If I make it through the damn bone marrow transplant, I’ll marry you once I can stand up on my own for more than thirty seconds again.”

“Excellent. I thought this might give you incentive to live.”

Harry shakes his head. “You’re more than enough on your own.” He squeezes with his fingers. “Dale… I really didn’t think I’d see you again.”

Dale nods. “Harry, please believe me when I say that I did everything in my power to escape sooner… it simply wasn’t possible. And even for some amount of time following my escape I was psychologically incapacitated. Until yesterday, I wasn’t lucid, and I had no means of returning here to you. It’s perfectly understandable that in twenty seven years you would give up on the idea and hope of us reuniting.”

“I have really bad alcohol problems, now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“All my doctors told me that probably had a lot to do with why my cancer got so bad so quickly.”

“It stands to reason,” Dale nods. “Alcohol is a known carcinogen.”

“I missed you so much. I don’t even think I can say how much, there isn’t a word big enough for it.”

“I know. It’s alright, I’m back now and I’m not leaving again.” A slow smile creeps onto his face, a little bit mischievous - it’s a look that almost yanks Harry back twenty seven years. “I like you in my shirt, Harry.”

Harry snorts. “I have six more of them… ah, I threw up on one of them this morning, though, so it has to get washed before you take it back from me.”

Dale chuckles and shakes his head. “I won’t take them back. We can share them.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“What I want is for you to get better… that way we can go home and get married like you said.”

“Like _I_ said? It’s your idea in the first place.”

The smile is fond, now. “I love you, Harry.”

“I love you, Coop.”

They’ll never be able to say it enough, but that’s okay. Harry never wants to stop saying it and he’ll never get sick of hearing it, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to god, half the nurses at the hospital where I used to work were named Penny. It was bizarre.


	7. Epilogue - A Sunday Routine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so hopefully this one is a bit soothing after the last chapter put all of you through the wringer? (Apparently I did, in fact, reach my goal of making some of you cry, which is a fact I'm very proud of by the way. I'm ALWAYS trying to make my readers cry.)

“Frank said Lucy’s planning on throwing a party for me,” Harry chuckles.

“Oh?” Dale asks, still playing with his hair.

“Yeah… apparently being cancer-free for two years demands that she stuff me full of cake in the station’s conference room.”

Dale smiles. “It’s certainly something I can’t protest celebrating, Harry.”

Neither of them moves. They’re lying on a blanket in the grass about two and a half yards from their front porch, Dale on his back with Harry’s head on his chest. True to his word, he hasn’t strayed more than a dozen feet from Harry since their reunion in the research hospital in Seattle unless it was absolutely necessary, and even then it was never more than two hours until they were back in each other’s immediate proximity. Lying in the May sun like this is one of many ways they’re making up for almost three decades that they were unable to spend together, and after Harry’s grueling stint in the hospital and having to face his own mortality neither of them takes this time for granted. They’re not young enough to take anything for granted even ignoring the horrifying business with the Black Lodge.

“I don’t like cake,” Harry complains. “And Lucy  _ knows _ I don’t like cake. It never stopped her from bringing me one every damn year on my birthday until I retired, though.”

“It’s the thought that counts.” Dale strokes his fingertips along the side of his husband’s neck before returning them to those thick, soft curls. “Once she’s done torturing you with pastries we’ll go into town and have a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant.”

“I love you, Dale.”

“I love you, Harry.”

They repeat those same words to each other as often as they think of it. Had Dale not become trapped, they should’ve said it many thousands of times in the past twenty nine years. It’s another means of making up for all that time that was stolen from them.

“Y’know, for awhile I stopped dreaming about you,” Harry informs him. “I didn’t have any pictures and I forgot how you looked and how you sounded. Then right before I went to the hospital you showed up again… I couldn’t see your face, but you talked to me and you said you’d come back to me soon. And then six weeks later I woke up from a nap and you were just  _ there, _ holding my hand.”

Dale allows a smile to stretch across his face. He ceases to play with Harry’s fluffy curls and slips his arms around his husband’s shoulders.

“A very long time ago, only just before I entered the Lodge if memory serves, I sat in your kitchen and told Diane on no uncertain terms that I’ve never loved anyone the same as how I love you… I thought of that so many times while I was trapped. Each failed escape attempt, I reminded myself of it: I must try again so that I can return to Harry. Ultimately the Lodge released me of its own accord. I can’t possibly count the number of times I worked to free myself before that point, but after the initial five or six tries I could no longer recall any other reason besides you that I should escape back to reality. Thinking of you helped maintain my sanity.”

Harry shuffles, crawls up slightly and repositions himself over top of Dale so they can kiss. The rumble of a truck coming up the driveway does nothing to interrupt them; they know who it is. He’s early.

The door of the truck slams shut and boots crunch the gravel. “Good thing I didn’t get here a few minutes later, I’d be booking you two for indecent exposure.”

Harry pulls back slightly and Dale watches him roll his eyes. “Frank, this is private property and we’re in the middle of the woods. I could fuck him over the porch railing and there’d be nobody around to see for three and a half miles at least.”

“Technically you could, but I’d be hesitant to go along with it due to the inherent risk of splinters,” Dale points out, drawing a snort from Harry.

“I hate both of you,” Frank grunts in a tone that says he doesn’t mean it.

“Well, then you’re welcome to not come over every Sunday afternoon and use up all the propane in my grill to overcook a bunch of fish that I caught,” Harry snarks back, slowly rolling away from Dale and getting to his feet.

“Gentlemen, I’d like to remind you at this time that I tolerate no sibling rivalry-related hostilities on my property,” Dale interjects, also standing.

“I brought steaks, too,” Frank offers, holding up a reusable shopping bag with obvious weight to it.

They set up the grill and retrieve their haul from yesterday’s expedition to Pearl Lakes from the fridge. Dale lets his husband and brother-in-law bicker with each other in peace on the porch as he chops vegetables into something resembling a cohesive salad, one of very few forms of food preparation he’s able to manage on his own. Despite the lingering sibling rivalry between Harry and Frank, he always enjoys this ritual, and he knows despite the gripes that Frank appreciates it as well - it gives him a break from his wife’s mental non-health. Besides all of this, Dale understands that Harry’s relationship to Frank is almost the exact opposite as how he and his own older brother had been… those two love each other the way you only can love family, and their chosen form of expressing that love is through incessant and pointless verbal conflict.

Dale includes shredded cheese in the salad and takes it outside, setting it on the table that lives on the porch. Harry is busy adding two different kinds of seasoning to the steak and the fish, pausing so that Frank can turn over each piece before resuming on the uncovered side.

“So tell me about this damn party of Lucy’s,” Harry groans, sitting in one of the chairs with a sloped back and crossing his ankles over each other on the decking.

“Oh, you know how Lucy is,” Frank shrugs. “Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I got the idea that if I don’t make damn sure you’re there she’ll change the password on my computer again and not tell me what it is.”

Harry snorts. “Yeah, she did that to me once a few years ago because I hadn’t taken a vacation recently and she said I was too stressed. And y’know what happened? I sat at home for a week and drank myself into a stupor.”

“She also wanted me to tell you that you’re still too skinny and that she’s going to force-feed you at least half of this cake,” Frank says, looking over his shoulder at Dale.

“Kindly remind her that my metabolism is absurd and I’m incapable of substantial weight gain,” Dale answers patiently.

“Lucky bastard,” Frank grumbles.

Dale sits beside Harry and they relax into their chairs, reaching over slightly so they can hold hands.

“This would go so good with beer,” Harry comments in an almost idle tone of voice.

“Harry, you’re a recovering alcoholic and a cancer survivor. Beer is the last thing you need,” Frank reminds him before Dale’s mouth has even opened to express an identical sentiment.

“Yeah, but when I was trying to drink myself to death it was with whiskey,” Harry argues.

“No beer,” Dale and Frank both tell him, firmly and in unison.

“Alright, damn.”

Dale leans across the arms of their chairs to kiss his cheek, drawing a grin. “It’s for your own good.”

“Yeah, yeah. Why can’t ‘for my own good’ be something tasty for once?”

Dale senses that this question is rhetorical and elects not to answer, instead stroking his thumb across Harry’s knuckles and listening to the sizzle of the grill. He loves Harry so much and while he regrets that it took so long for them to be allowed the luxury of moments like these, he still wouldn’t trade them for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates are on Mondays and Fridays.
> 
> All my Twin Peaks fics can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=127943&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Aaron_The_8th_Demon).
> 
> Comments are welcomed and encouraged :)


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